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Sheldon S. Wolin

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism Paperback – February 21, 2010

by Sheldon S. Wolin (Author)

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Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?

Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.

In a new preface, Wolin describes how the Obama administration, despite promises of change, has left the underlying dynamics of managed democracy intact.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Princeton University Press
Publication date

February 21, 2010
Dimensions

6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

069114589X
ISBN-13

978-0691145891
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Winner of the 2008 Lannan Notable Book Award, Lannan Foundation"

"[A] comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity by one of our most seasoned and respected political philosophers. . . . Democracy Incorporated is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States--including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors."---Chalmers Johnson, Truthdig

"[Democracy Incorporated provides] a rare, chilling analysis of intellectual critics of democracy. If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct."---C. P. Waligorski, Choice

"Sheldon Wolin has produced an ambitious and broad-ranging book that examines the current state of democracy in America. . . . Wolin argues that the unquestioned faith in the virtues of free market capitalism has dramatically narrowed the range of policy options that are on the table when debate turns to resolving the US's ills. . . .[T]his is a trenchant and powerful volume."---Alex Waddan, International Affairs

"Of the many books I've read or skimmed in the past seven years that attempted to get inside the social and political debacles of the present, none has had the chilling clarity and historical discernment of Sheldon S. Wolin's Democracy Incorporated. Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process."---Jonathan Crary, Artforum

"[W]e need to understand the deep roots of our present troubles ourselves and Wolin's book is an excellent beginning."---Toby Grace, Out in Jersey

"Democracy Incorporated acts as an antidote to unconstrained corporate power and an elitist obsession and should be widely read by all those who cherish democracy and civil liberty."---Shih-Yu Chou, Political Studies Review

"[Wolin] provides a rich narrative of the struggle of elites and the demos from ancient Greece through the writing of the U.S. Constitution and into the present, and the corporate-managed politics that has emerged will survive no matter which party holds Congress or the presidency."---Coleman Fannin, Journal of Church and State

"Despite being written shortly before both the financial crisis and the Obama victory, the main lineaments of his analysis are still alarmingly cogent."---Tom Angier, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

"To find our way back to normalcy in a time of crisis and emergency we must ask ourselves, 'how did we get here?' Wolin's wisdom is a helpful guide for that journey." ― Salon

Review

"With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy, Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within. It is a book that policymakers and scholars of contemporary society should read and reflect upon."―Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, author of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands

"As we've come to expect from Sheldon Wolin, a tightly argued and deeply revealing book about the dangers of unconstrained capitalism for our democracy."―Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley

"For half a century, Sheldon Wolin has been one of the most distinguished and influential political theorists in the United States and a perceptive observer of the American political scene. In his magisterial latest book, Wolin shows himself at the height of his powers as he presents a highly original, sober, and persuasive account of a number of tendencies in contemporary American society that constitute a significant danger for the future of constitutional democracy. If totalitarianism establishes itself in the United States, it will be in the 'inverted' form Wolin analyzes in this important book."―Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

"Wolin's writing has a resonance that binds the canon of political philosophy to unfolding events and present circumstances. In Democracy Incorporated, he contends that the institutions and practices that Americans regarded as their defense against totalitarianism―and other forms of authoritarian domination―have failed them. There is nothing like this book. It is a major, potentially revolutionary contribution to political thought."―Anne Norton, author of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

"Powerful and persuasive. Democracy Incorporated does exactly what great political theory should do: it provides a theoretical framework that allows the reader to see the political world anew. It left this reader with an almost nightmarish vision of American politics today, a nightmare all the more terrifying for being so compelling, so vivid, and so real."―Marc Stears, author of Progressives, Pluralists, and the Problems of the State

From the Back Cover

"With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy, Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within. It is a book that policymakers and scholars of contemporary society should read and reflect upon."--Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, author of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands

"As we've come to expect from Sheldon Wolin, a tightly argued and deeply revealing book about the dangers of unconstrained capitalism for our democracy."--Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley

"For half a century, Sheldon Wolin has been one of the most distinguished and influential political theorists in the United States and a perceptive observer of the American political scene. In his magisterial latest book, Wolin shows himself at the height of his powers as he presents a highly original, sober, and persuasive account of a number of tendencies in contemporary American society that constitute a significant danger for the future of constitutional democracy. If totalitarianism establishes itself in the United States, it will be in the 'inverted' form Wolin analyzes in this important book."--Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

"Wolin's writing has a resonance that binds the canon of political philosophy to unfolding events and present circumstances. In Democracy Incorporated, he contends that the institutions and practices that Americans regarded as their defense against totalitarianism--and other forms of authoritarian domination--have failed them. There is nothing like this book. It is a major, potentially revolutionary contribution to political thought."--Anne Norton, author of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

"Powerful and persuasive. Democracy Incorporated does exactly what great political theory should do: it provides a theoretical framework that allows the reader to see the political world anew. It left this reader with an almost nightmarish vision of American politics today, a nightmare all the more terrifying for being so compelling, so vivid, and so real."--Marc Stears, author of Progressives, Pluralists, and the Problems of the State

About the Author

Sheldon S. Wolin is professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University. His books include Politics and Vision and Tocqueville between Two Worlds (both Princeton).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; Revised edition (February 21, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 069114589X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691145891
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.12 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #866,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #658 in Fascism (Books)
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wsmrer

Take the Professor’s course.

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2017

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Sheldon Wolin is gone now and that is a shame for it would be such a delight to read his rendering of our very current time (2017) that so many others are trying to explain. I imagine a séance as one catches in old movies where the collective sit in a dark smoked filled room while the master/mistress seeks a trance… ‘Ah’ he is here. What great Master have you to say? “I told you so.”
Publishing this work in 2008 he lays out the character of the American society and where its prided Democracy has gone; most recently under the reign of George I-II as he calls it but the roots travel far back to earlier administrations and their untruths and proclivities. What he finds is Democracy Incorporate, Inverted Totalitarianism, and Superpower – a contrived Imperial thrust housing perpetual wars. One thesis is: Concentrated corporate power and democracy are incompatible. These are heavy charges, is this not yet the world’s leading democracy?

This work could have been edited to a tighter presentation but his language is so memorable that would have been a loss. Here he explains what we do sense has happened but can not quite grasp: “The crisis, it seems, is that there was no crisis. In its literal meaning a crisis is “a turning point.” Adapting the formulation “a turning point but no crisis” to the condition I have designated “inverted totalitarianism,” we might ask, why does the existence of that turning point go unrecognized? how are the facts of radical political change concealed when there is no evidence, say, of a coup or revolutionary overthrow? how can we recognize that the country is at the political turning point of inverted totalitarianism?” (pp. 211-212) "“The development that is emblematic of the economic polity is the extent to which finance has come to define politics. Millions of dollars from corporations are systematically poured into the legislative process and electoral campaigns.
State actors have become dependent more on corporate power than on their own citizens. Even a citizen-army is becoming a thing of the past, replaced by professionals skilled in the latest weaponry developed by corporate technology.
The military has been absorbed into the corporate economy (defense contracts, weapons procurement, retired generals become executives) and its culture.”
(p. 589)

The topic Superpower, incorporating Globalization and Militarization have become more recognized by the citizenry but here too you will delight in his analysis; other would prefer the title “Pax Americana” as a gentler cover, but that behavior he explains well.
The original was published in 2008, indeed a crisis period as it has proven; re-released with a new preface by the author, 2010 and a new edition, with an introduction by Chris Hedges in 2017. The footnotes are as informative and entertaining as the text.

The current administration is pushing the envelope right along and one can only hope its Superpower is somehow controlled. The bright side as Wolin would see it is that the citizenry does seem to be getting the message that we need to pay attention to where we are going. Take the Professor’s course!

28 people found this helpful

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Robert J. Crawford

If you're looking for a framework to understand how America's democracy is evolving...

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2017

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this book is not just a great place to start: it is essential. Though I may not agree with everything he argues, Wolin provides an overarching interpretation of many disparate political trends and offers an assessment of what it might mean, placing odds and bits in context. It is a very grim and difficult book, for real political junkies and serious students of poli-sci, also for those willing to put in the effort because they care.

According to Wolin, due to a conjuncture of factors, the US has backed into "inverted totalitarianism". Unlike the varieties of totalitarianism in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR - they were top down, centralized, and attempting to dominate all political discourse with propaganda and brute authoritarian force - inverted totalitarianism is indirect, decentralized, and not dependent on some charismatic dictator. It is a system that evolved without plan. In accordance with this logic, it enables a closed elite to control events by overwhelming citizens with what's come to be called fake news, an obsession with military security, and the increasing use of management techniques (including advertising, economic efficiency models, etc.). While it advantages republicans, the democrats are full participants as well, as the latter's connections to Wall Street attest.

In my reading, there are 3 principal elements to Wolin's conjuncture. First, there were the intentions of the founding fathers themselves: Madison and Hamilton agreed that "the mob" was dangerous, hence they wanted a "republican" form of government and not a "democratic" one, referring not to the parties that emerged later but to rule by elites of wealth, property, and power. Furthermore, they designed our constitution to inhibit change, blocking the voice of the people. Second, with the advent of the military-industrial complex, the elite gained a new kind of unquestionable legitimacy, whereby they had to "protect" citizens and hence excluded them from strategy considerations that were deemed too esoteric and sensitive for open democratic debate. W took this to a new extreme after 9/11. Third, also post-WWII, there was the rise of management science to ideological dominance, an economics logic that offered its own quasi-religious precepts that informed a total faith in the efficiency of the market and mechanisms to "manage" democracy in accordance with "social science".

In practical terms, this translates into more and more areas that escape the democratic scrutiny that were once the province of public policy and subject to regulation and political debate. The mechanisms include privatization - of prisons, military operations, and other kinds of public service - but also the appointment of military specialists. Moreover, the methodologies of management and economics limit the spectrum of political possibility, e.g. the distribution of income and even the minimum wage are deemed illegitimate by certain politicians and hence outside of legitimate discussion as the "market" must be respected. Wolin argues that these developments represent a vital threat to the integrity of our institutions and political life. This is something I fully agree with - and once you start thinking about it, the more you notice this going on in American (and western) public life. Wolin weaves it all into a seamless gestalt.

This brings us to inverted totalitarianism. I have struggled with this notion, not quite able to get my mind around it completely. I will probably have to re-read the book more carefully. Rather than a dependence on autocratic power or ideology, it is a political system attached to abstract ideals that enable an elite to exert control. Rather than dominated by a police state, the public is exhausted by life's demands, easily distracted, essentially preoccupied hence unable to mobilize itself politically; intractable pseudo-issues, such as cultural preferences or abortion, drain energy from debates, creating wedge issues to exploit and then forget once in power. The result is a return to elite oligarchic rule, similar to that envisaged by Madison but via modern means and technologies. Obviously, this is highly relevant to contemporary politics and open to interpretation, i.e. that Trump is either trying to remedy this ("drain the swamp") or he is the culmination of it in his authoritarian style that depends on traditional elites like the military and appointees from Goldman Sachs - or both. Finally, Wolin suggests some remedies in the form of grassroot initiatives at the local level, though I think they are weak.

This is one of the most profound and engaging political books I have read in years, pregnant with possibility regarding the interpretation of our current politics. As such, it is very difficult to digest, due to the non-linear nature of the presentation of its many fruitful ideas. I recommend this to everyone who is interested in improving the American political system, in understanding better what has happened to us. I think it is a masterpiece by a great political philosopher. Recommended warmly.

20 people found this helpful

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Joshua T

Gems buried in mucky writing

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2019

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As another reviewer has noted, a reader can spend time searching for another word the author could have used. I would add that a reader can spend even more time shuffling parts of paragraphs that don't fit together to other paragraph parts. Since Robert Reich has called this book tightly argued, I have to wonder if some gremlin has rearranged the original text for poor readability. Hard to believe it was actually written that way.
Yes, there are gems of insight in the book. Must have been great before the Ministry of Information got to it. Put another way, this is the kind of book that creates an apathetic polity, supposedly the author's great fear.

6 people found this helpful

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Noel Aldebol

A Grand Master of the subject providing a Master crash course

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2016

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I did not major in political science, and yet after having read this book deliberately, reading the footnotes, and looking up the references therein I feel like Sheldon Wolin has provided an educations worth a few semesters.

He makes an excellent presentation of the transformations we have undergone and the silent nature ( in public discourse ) of the executions.

Sheldon is a master at using the best words to express his ideas. I had to look up a lot of words, and thankfully I had my Kindle version of this book, so I had dictionaries and Wikipedia at my fingertips.

In the course of presenting his thesis, Sheldon provides a master crash course of the history of our democratic involvement, or, to be more exact, the demos' struggles and efforts for their inclusion in politics and for the realization of a democratic political process, and their struggles against the elites in order to claim an equal voice in the political power and process.

Finally, Sheldon Wolin presents his thesis with more than enough evidence supporting that we indeed are in an inverted totalitarian system.

8 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

James Chambers

An excellent book presenting a view of the United States of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 23, 2015

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An excellent book presenting a view of the United States of America from the perspective of one of Americas most trusted and competent historians and philosophers. Unfortunately, his view is not perceived by most Americans who are held in check either by their corporately owned, controlled and compliant media using cognitive dissonance and brain washing to deliver a biased, deceitful but righteous message of their country's purported politics. The USA Patriot Act and the nightmarish presentation of the unremitting terrorist threats presented to the world as a treat to their nations security has allowed the US constitution to be shredded without so much as a whimper from the electorate. America has no natural enemies, but nevertheless has a more powerful military than during the cold war just doesn't make any sense. A private banking cartel that actively engineers the near collapse of the world economy and maintains its innocence. The US statistics tells the real story:Twenty active aircraft carriers, a larger level of surveillance than anywhere in the world, 2.22 million army and military reservists, 800 overseas bases, a prison population of 2,228,000, 780,000 police officers, 16 security agencies where the richest 1% of the population have the equivalent wealth of the bottom 34.6%, an admitted military budget of $640 billion and a child poverty level of 23.1% next to Romania, the lowest in the world. A new form of Democracy called 'INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM'.

7 people found this helpful

Daffy Bibliophile

Politics Privatized

Reviewed in Canada on February 16, 2013

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This book is about the takeover of the public political system in the United States by private corporations - the ultimate hostile takeover, or maybe more of a friendly takeover given the close mingling of the public and private elites. In the author's words inverted totalitarianism "represents the political coming-of-age of corporate power". It is the triumph of market forces over democratic freedoms, the triumph of private over public. But what to do with all of those people who have the right to vote in elections? Well, democracy can be managed and voters can be roused from their state of apathy to cast their votes and then return to the apathetic norm required by inverted totalitarianism. Don't suppress democracy, that's too obvious, instead control it, manage it.

Wolin does an excellent job of dissecting the corruption found in the American political system: lobbyists are now the main political actors - not citizens, not voters. Big business and big government are entwined in an incestuous embrace while we the people are left to go through the motions of perfunctory voting once every four years.

Inverted totalitarianism is unlike classical totalitarianism (Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia). These earlier versions of totalitarianism mobilized the masses to show solidarity with one another and obedience to the Leader whereas inverted totalitarianism relies on a fragmented society of competitive individuals who are terrified of losing their jobs to cheaper foreign labour or losing their lives in a terrorist attack. A frightened, exhausted herd is much easier to manage. If people are working two jobs and just barely keeping their heads above water how are they going to have the time, energy or interest to become politically involved?
If the elites can successfully manage the herd, they can get on with the business of "democracy" without having to explain things to the people. It's politics conducted in the style of the corporate boardroom and the takeover is complete.

This review is of the paperback version which was published in 2010. The author includes a new preface in which he addresses the election of President Obama and its effect on inverted totalitarianism. His conclusions? I won't spoil it for you; it's a great read and I recommend it to everyone, American or otherwise.

The book could have used some closer editing as it states that the Berlin Wall fell in 1987 (it fell in 1989) and that the Korean War took place from 1951 to 1954 (the actual dates of that conflict were 1950-1953). Minor details perhaps, but they should be pointed out even though they in no way detract from Wolin's reasoning.

11 people found this helpful

Anh Tran Quoc

Chapeau!

Reviewed in Germany on September 16, 2021

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Impressive analysis for our contemporary political system in the USA emulated by many western "democracies"

Chesley Mesher

Masterful insight into the state of democracy - do not "pass go" without reading "Democracy Inc."

Reviewed in Canada on May 18, 2014

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Wolin's research into the milieu of the state of democracy is masterful in its breathe and scope. Inverted totalitarianism is in, democracy, the fleeting experiment has been trumped as the nation state - big corporate business deceitfully has taken the reins of power and capital wealth.

One person found this helpful

Anna E

Interesting Read!

Reviewed in Canada on August 10, 2021

Verified Purchase

Good presentation of a point of view.

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